Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Jingle Bells! Two Mini Ponies crash Davis Square 5K


Two NETTers ran the Jingle Bells 5K last weekend with great results. Here's Bobble Head Bob's report:

"Slava finished 21 out of 650 in his age group and I came in 4th out of 62 in mine today in the Marathon Sports Jingle Bell 5K in Davis Square, Somerville. Perfect weather but hard to run your fastest in such a big race (5,000), so I think we both did well. No pix except for a lame selfie. Results  are posted here."

Way to get in the Holiday Spirit guys! 

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Ponies Take the Cup(s) at Walter's Run in second leg of NETT Winter Double


Overall winner
First place, Men 40-49
Third place Women 40-49
Third place Women 50-59

In part 2 of the annual NETT Winter Double, a few hearty Mini Ponies took to the streets of West Roxbury for Walter's Run with very positive results posted here.

Zack, Crazy Dave and Karyn all did the double. Zack went 2 for 2 on the weekend, winning Walter's Run in a blistering 16:07 more than a minute ahead of second place. Crazy Dave was next for NETT, winning the men's master's division and both Karyn and Mairead were third in their age groups. Bobblehead Bob ran a very solid sub-23 in the very competitive 60-69 category.

As always the Parkway Running Club put on a very well-organized and fun race. New RDs Reyna and Brian did a fantastic job motivating volunteers and getting great prizes (mugs, gift certs, etc.).

It was the great cap to the annual NETT Winter Double. 





Saturday, December 12, 2015

Storm the tower! Mini Ponies Crush it at Mt Hood

First overall
Second place overall.
First Female 50-59
Second Female 40-49
First place, Men's Open Team.
First place women's Master's team.
Second place, Men's Master's Team
Fourth place Women's Open team

How's that for kicking total ass.

The NETT Mini Ponies basically dominated the Assault on Mount Hood XC race today with a great mix of team stalwarts and new faces teaming up to Assault the course.

HUGE congrats to Zack for literally running away with the race, paced only by his pal and new NETT favorite Joe. Going 1-2 pretty much sewed up the men's open category, but Slava made sure of it by running way beyond his current fitness level!

The Women's open team was a bright spot with three of NETT's top female recruits--Julia, Steph, and Bridget teaming up to finish fourth in a very tough category.

The women's master's team were paced by Kristin (second female 40-49) and Karyn (first female 50-59) and Julie "Save the Day McVeigh" basically scrapping her morning plans to show up and help the team to the victory!

And the men's master's team was paced superbly by Paul, Chris, newcomer Joe with Crazy Dave and Andy offering support.

Big thanks to our cheering section (Slava's family, new recruit Matt ) coming out for the day.

As always, the Melrose Running Club put on a great event on an insanely tough course. Great food, post-race awards ("YOU get a nutcraker, YOU get a nutcracker, YOU get a nutcraker). Brian Slater's crew just brings it every year.

Overall, an amazing day--THIS is what it's all about! Great results, but most importantly a LOAD of smiles and fun.


Friday, December 11, 2015

YP Takes the TARC Winter Crown, Bob Grabs an Age Group Podium

Big Congrats to Young Patrick who ran away with the 40-mile TARC Fells Trail Ultra Winter trail race last weekend.

The race, which was founded by NETT's own Bogie D, does laps of the Fells Skyline trail and runners can do laps either clockwise or counterclockwise. As a result, runners don't have a great sense for what place they might be in during the race. YP said he wasn't sure how close he was to second place. Well, it turns out he had a full 24 minute lead by the end of the race.
See the full results here.


YP wasn't the only one who had a good race weekend, too. Bobblehead Bob had his own success. Here's his report:

"On a whim I registered for the Cambridge Winter Classic 5K on Saturday last minute and jogged over from my home in Somerville to the race at Central Square on Sunday morning. Nice crisp, bright day and saw several familiar faces.

It was my first 5K road race since January 1st, the hip injury in the marathon, etc. so I wanted to get a baseline to see where I was fitness-wise before I run Walter's Race next Sunday December 13. I had been doing some track work outdoors and indoors lately trying to regain more of my speed, so I wanted to see if that work had made any impact on my fast twitch muscles.

Well, there were a couple of surprises.

The first was that they made a mistake marking off the course, so it turned out to be almost 3.5 miles instead of 3.1. So, my initial dismay at my time was tempered when the actual, longer distance on my Garmin matched other runner's measurements and ultimately the race officials'.

The second surprise was that I came in third out of 47 runners in the 60+ category!

Slava --- who at 39 is at the top of his age group --- was there too and ran a blistering pace to finish in the top 20 out of 450 runners in his age group!"
Full results here:

https://my.racewire.com/result/7013246

Congrats Bob!